Social Costs of Hate Crimes

Victims of hate crimes are targeted based on prejudices of the attacker. Doerner and Lab (2017) describe hate crimes as “bias-motivated violence” (p. 392). The attacker may or may not personally know the victim. The victim is selected based on the attacker’s perception that the victim belongs to a particular group (based on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, and so forth), thereby intending for the larger group to suffer as indirect victims of the attack. For this discussion, search for a popular or scholarly article that presents a hate crime and a discussion of the implications for other members that fit within the targeted group. Integrating (and citing) what you learned from the article and other sources along with your critical thinking on the topic, discuss how the hate crime potentially impacts the identity of other members of the group. Next, search the Internet for an organization that works to protect the rights of the targeted group. The organization might be a local, state, or national group. Provide the name of the organization and describe the support, services, or lobbying that the organization provides for members of the targeted group.